Beyond Infrastructure: How California’s Climate Resilience Bond Can Bring a Just Recovery

Sona Mohnot, Amee Raval•May 17, 2020•Environmental Equity

Crisis is a threat multiplier for inequality. Whether it’s a global pandemic, mass power shutoffs, or devastating wildfires, the impacts and risks are dramatically different depending on who you are and where you live. Climate Resilience bond proposals from the California legislature offer an opportunity to address that inequality and move us toward a just recovery.

Over the past few months the novel coronavirus has taken the world by storm. Entire countries and states have halted business as usual and we stand on the brink of an unprecedented global economic crisis. This pandemic not only lays bare the flaws and shortcomings of our current political and economic systems, but also foreshadows the devastating global impact and disruptions that we will all face if the ongoing climate crisis continues unchecked.

As California looks for solutions, we need to move quickly to stabilize our communities and climate -- now and for the long haul -- starting with the communities facing the greatest risks with the fewest material resources.

The climate resilience bond recently proposed by the legislature could offer one possible way to support frontline communities as they recover from COVID-19 and prepare for climate change threats. But it’ll only work if we go beyond physical infrastructure and invest in community resilience. That means making sure our communities have the social and economic support they need to face the coming climate disasters.

While the COVID-19 pandemic certainly affects us all, the impacts and risks differ dramatically depending on who you are and where you live—whether you have a good job, access to healthcare, stable housing, and paid sick leave. In working class communities of color, indigenous communities, and immigrant and refugee communities, people are feeling the impacts of racist attacks, unemployment, housing vulnerability, and energy insecurity.

Communities on the frontlines of the struggle against climate change have long endured economic instability and worse health from a variety of causes.The COVID-19 pandemic has not only revealed these existing disparities, but is further widening the gap.

“We must be intentional about supporting the communities hardest hit by the pandemic.”

Right now, we have an opportunity to dramatically change course -- to come out of this crisis stronger, more resilient and better prepared to face the coming storms together -- by using the climate resilience bond to propel a just recovery that addresses these disparities.

We must be intentional about supporting the communities hardest hit by the pandemic. We must make sure that our policies not only help communities respond to the current moment, but also build resilience for the climate disasters ahead. Now more than ever, state leaders need to make sure that everyone has a stable home to shelter in, hot water and electricity, the ability to vote safely, and environmental health protections. As organizations committed to advancing environmental justice and racial equity, we seek to support communities to withstand systemic crises and disasters and ensure a just recovery that transforms harmful systems and creates opportunities to thrive.

Using a Climate Resilience Bond to Recover from COVID-19 and Build Resilience to Climate Change

These proposed bonds can provide critical investments to help the state recover from COVID-19 and prepare for inevitable climate disasters. However, the current proposals focus on what we can do to harden built infrastructure and protect natural resources, and are simply not enough. This pandemic has shown us that without strategies to simultaneously deliver economic relief and social supports alongside environmental protection, climate adaptation efforts will not meaningfully and effectively address the needs of communities as they face crisis.

The following recommendations are designed to make any climate resilience bond better uplift community needs and address current conditions. They strive to create a genuine economic stimulus, meet community climate resilience needs, and center equity. We acknowledge that there are limitations to what a bond can fund. If a bond cannot directly fund the following proposals, we strongly encourage policymakers to advance them in accompanying policy efforts.

The RYSE Commons is an example of a youth-led resilience hub that will develop local community power and leadership for an equitable transition, serve as a focal point for community-building, social connections and services, promote renewable energy and sustainability, and power Richmond during times of disaster

Identify Climate-Vulnerable Populations Using an Integrated Mapping Platform to lay the groundwork needed to protect California’s most impacted communities from climate threats. Policymakers must be able to see the full picture and prioritize bond investments accordingly.

Establish Community Resilience Centers to protect communities from the immediate threats anticipated from future wildfires, power outages, and evacuations. Community facilities should be offered funding to secure emergency resources and staffing to provide delivery of clean backup power, drinking water, air filters, cooling, food storage, and economic assistance.

Invest in Resilient Workforce Development and Training. The crisis we face has put a spotlight on the critical importance of investing in social care infrastructure and workers who are on the frontlines of fighting this virus and keeping our communities healthy and functioning. We need to rebuild the capacity of the public sector, the health care system, green jobs, and community-based responses.

Fund and Expand the Transformative Climate Communities program(administered by the Strategic Growth Council) and expand the program to fund robust projects that advance climate adaptation and resilience priorities for disadvantaged communities. These projects are already creating jobs in underserved communities and have the potential to create many more.

Protecting Californians from climate change, reducing pollution in the most impacted communities and supporting communities as they recover from COVID-19 will require significant investments, particularly in working class communities of color that are being hit hardest by both climate change and COVID-19. As California develops a climate resilience bond, we strongly encourage our policymakers to prioritize measures that stabilize our communities and climate -- now and for the long haul -- starting with the communities facing the greatest risks with the fewest material resources to recover.

This is our moment to collectively rewrite the story of what our world will become and what is possible when we invest in communities. A just recovery will make our whole state stronger.

Removing Barriers, Creating Economic Opportunity

About The Greenlining Institute

Founded in 1993, The Greenlining Institute envisions a nation where communities of color thrive and race is never a barrier to economic opportunity. We advance economic opportunity for people of color through advocacy, community and coalition building, research, and leadership development. We work on a variety of major policy issues because economic opportunity doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Rather than seeing these issues as being in separate silos, Greenlining views them as interconnected threads in a web of opportunity. The Greenlining Institute is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit registered in the US under EIN: 94-3173571.